IRON MAIDEN frontman Bruce Dickinson, who was diagnosed with throat cancer back in 2014, was asked during the question-and-answer portion of his January 18 spoken-word show in Orlando, Florida what advice he would give to anyone getting ready to start their own battle against cancer.
“Here’s the way I dealt with it… And people will deal with it in different ways. I embraced the treatment,” Bruce responded. “So I went along to see the big radiation machine and I said, ‘Okay, how does this work then? What does it do? And how much are you giving me and where? And how are you making a difference between this one and this one and this one? And you can do what with it? Wow, that’s really cool. That’s amazing. It’s insane, the technology.'”
“I would say embrace the treatment and always remember the [likelihood]… I don’t know what your cancer is. I don’t know the individual circumstances. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not gonna make any predictions. I can’t do anything like that, nor would I, ’cause it’s very private. But I have to say that the therapies that people are coming up with now are so on the edge and successful that you really do stand a very good chance.
“‘Cause half of us are gonna get cancer, and it’s not a death sentence anymore, and you can deal with it. And the things they have to do to your body to get rid of it are getting better and better and better as we go down the line. They did some nasty things to my body. I’m lucky I’m completely clear of it and everything.
“I only really talk about it when I come to do these shows ’cause people want to know,” he added. “I quite enjoy talking about it because you kind of demystify it a little bit for people. It’s a scary thing.”
Approximately 39.2 percent of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer of any site at some point during their lifetime, based on 2016–2018 data.
